A Song of Ice and Fire, by George R.R. Martin

I held out for years on the HBO series, not for any philosophical or ideological reason, and only have recently watched them - if you have seen the series, like it, and have not read the books, you should - there is an enormous amount of wonderful stuff missing from the show (understandably) - and, frankly, I don't know how you can watch the show having not read the books - way too confusing. I thought that if the series is that good, the book(s) are probably worth some time. And they are. Caveat - you have to be patient. The novels run some 800 to over 1000 pages apiece; the first 600 pages of the first volume (Game of Thrones) deal mainly with character development and the history of the land, Westeros - a necessity for the complexity of the story to come. Don't have much to say about the text itself - it's reasonably well written and paced (I guess) appropriately - though some will drown I suppose with the plodding course through the first half of Game of Thrones (the pace is veritably brisk when compared with Robert Jordan's novels - aagh, I gave up after four of those). The plot certainly picks up steam with the second installment, A Clash of Kings, and then roars through the third, A Storm of Swords, before settling down a bit in A Feast For Crows - nevertheless, the storyline continues to evolve with new characters appearing. The fifth book, A Dance with Dragons, is more of the same and makes me wonder if the story will ever resolve. I am a bit fatigued, but if you are interested in fantasy/adventure, these are worth your time.